Plate blanks made of a material to be stamped



.June 4, 1957 E, OSTWALDT 2,794,393

PLATE BLANKS MADE OF A MATERIAL TO BE STAMPED Filed May 11, 1955 Fig.1 IFig.2

15'. Osiwaldt Horney;

Inventor:

United States Patent 1 2,794,393 PLATE BLANKS MADE OF A MATERIAL TO BESTAMPED Erich Ostwaldt, Berlin-Hermsdorf, Germany, assignor to AdremaMaschinenbau G. 111. b. H., Berlin, Germany Application May 11, 1953,Serial No. 354,006 7 Claims. (Cl. 101-369) This invention relates to anaddress-printing plate blank made of a material adapted to be stampedpreferably provided with two reinforced guiding edges. It is usual tostamp on to these plates the text which is to be printed later on whenthe plates pass through an address-printing machine. To allow theaddress-printing plates to be stamped they are generally made of sheetmetal. The stamping of such address-printing plates must often bechanged there is the danger, especially with plates made of sheet iron,that the basic form of the plate is so changed that disturbances arisewhile the plates pass through the address-printing machine. The changeof the basic form of the plate is caused by the fact that duringembossing the types in the plates material displacements occur whichresult in local stretching or compressing of material at the embossingspots and thereby generate stresses in the plate which lead to warpingof the plate.

The object of the invention is to avoid as much as possible suchdeformation during the stamping or restamping.

An essential feature of the invention consists in this that at least thearea of the plate to be stamped is provided on the one side withelevations and with corresponding recesses on the opposite side, therecesses extending like a screen parallel to one another forming groovesthe spacing of which amounts to fractions of the longitudinal dimensionof the types to be embossed. Tests have shown that plates so constructedcan be better stamped or restamped than plain plates. The plateaccording to the invention enables a shifting of the material duringstamping or restamping without any substantial changes in the basicshape of the plate.

The elevations and corresponding recesses may have most varied shapes.They may for instance consist of spot recesses stamped close together orof a plurality of parallel recesses arranged side by side. Thisconstruction has the further advantage that the rigidity of the plate isincreased.

The formation of the plate according to the invention is broadlysuitable for any address-printing plates, but is particularlyadvantageous in the case of printing plates of sheet iron, where thereis the danger of deformation when restamping is to such an extent, thatthey could not hitherto be successfully used. The invention can besuccessfully applied also to address-printing plates without folded overedges. It may even be applied to addressprinting plates of thermoplasticmaterial for the production of address-printing plates.

Other features of the invention are hereinafter described.

The drawing shows by way of example an embodiment of the invention,

Fig. 1 being a plan view of an address-printing plate blank,

Fig. 2 being a side view of the address-printing plate blank accordingto Fig. 1, and

Fig. 3 is a partial section through the plate according to Fig. 1 in thedirection of the line III-III and on an enlarged scale.

The illustrated address-printing plate consists of a strip of sheetmetal of rectangular form. The longitudinal edges of the strip arefolded over in a known manner so as to form guides 1 and 2. Between thetwo guiding edges 1 and 2 lies the area 3 to be stamped into which2,794,393 Patented June 4, 1957 the text to be printed is stamped byrelief pressing. The area into which the text is stamped is provided onthe one side with elevations, corresponding recmses being provided atthe opposite side, which form grooves extending on both sides of theplates parallel to one another like a screen which are spaced from oneanother by fractions of the lengthwise dimension of the printing typesto be embossed. In the illustrated example of the embodiment theelevations and recesses consist of longitudinal wavy grooves 4 stampedinto the said area (Fig. 3), about seven of such grooves being providedon one centimetre of the width of the area. The elevations and recessesmay, however, also be produced in any other suitable manner, e. g. bystamping spot recesses arranged close together. The recesses may alsoconsist of crosswise running grooves. The grooves have a depthcorresponding to about half the thickness of theplate.

The invention is not limited to address-printing plates providing withguiding edges but may also be advantageously applied to flataddress-printing plates.

What I claim is:

l. A reusable address printing plate comprising a body portion ofrelatively thick, substantially rigid, deformable material, the bodyportion being provided on one face with closely distributed projectionsof uniform height and on the other face with closely distributeddepressions of uniform depth, the depressions on one face lying oppositethe projections of the other face, and the projections and depressionsbeing disposed at points spaced from the median line of the body portionso that when characters are stamped on the body portion, severalprojections and depressions are located within each stamped characterand when pressure is applied to the stamped characters to remove thesame, the depressions and projections are displaced thus providingplanar surfaces on which further characters may be stamped.

2. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 1, in which the profileof the plate consists of elevations and corresponding recesses forminggrooves running parallel side by side.

3. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 1, in which at leastthe area of the plate to be stamped is wavy profiled in the longitudinaldirection.

4. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 1, in which theelevations and corresponding recesses form spot recesses stamped closetogether.

5. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 1, in which theelevations and corresponding recesses form crosswise running grooves.

6. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 5, in which sevengrooves are distributed over each centimetre.

7. An address-printing plate as claimed in claim 6, in which the depthof the grooves corresponds to about half the thickness of the materialof the plate.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS959,725 Dunc-an May 31, 1910 1,116,032 De Minico Nov. 3, 1914 1,151,401Tomlinson Aug. 24, 1915 1,453,384 Duncan May 4, 1923 1,856,014 AllenApr. 26, 1932 1,892,754 Tarbox Jan. 3, 1933 2,043,154 Damm June 2, 19362,091,976 Gollwitzer Sept. 7, 1937 2,166,226 Vehko July 18, 19392,330,572 Frey Sept. 28, 1943 2,645,178 Brainard July 14, 1953 FOREIGNPATENTS 388,443 Great Britain Feb. 7, 1933

